


The Other

by itstonedme



Series: The Other [1]
Category: The Faculty (1998)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Hallowe'en, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-31
Updated: 2009-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-15 01:57:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the C/Z Hallowe'en Grab Bag 2009 in which the story had to be based upon a film.  In this instance, the film was <i>The Entity</i>, reported to have been based itself on a true story.  On a serious note, however, heed the warning. What follows has instances of non-con because in the real life story upon which the movie and this fic are based, that too actually happened. Read no further if you would rather not go there.  First posted to LJ <a href="http://itstonedme.livejournal.com/27864.html#cutid1">here</a> with reader comments and links to all parts.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: A work of fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Part One**

 

The first time it happens, Casey is alone in his kitchen. 

He picks up the phone as it rings.

"Can you hang on a second?" he tells Zeke. "Gotta grab my coffee while we talk." 

"Quick, I've only got a few minutes."

Casey puts the phone down, scoots to the counter, grabs his mug and sets it beside him on the kitchen table as he sits.

"'K, I'm back." 

"We still on for tonight?"

"Yup," Casey dips forward to take a quick drink from his cup.

"Do you know you slobber when you drink?"

Casey swallows quickly so he can laugh. "Do not!"

"I can hear your throat working all the way from here."

"Fuck off."

"Not that I mind the thought of your throat working."

"Fuck off," Casey says again, but this time it's softer and makes him redden a little.

"I need the address of where we're meeting."

Casey gets up, the phone cord stretching behind him while he roots through some paper scraps on the kitchen counter. "Here." He gives Zeke the address.

"Gotta run. See you there."

"'K." Casey turns and hangs up. He reaches for his mug, but it's not there. For a mad second, he thinks it may have caught on the phone cord, even though he would have heard a crash. 

He quickly looks at the floor, at the chair, spins a hunt around the area, clearly puzzled.

He sees it out of the corner of his eye and turns slowly, staring.

His mug is on the stove.

*

Four days pass before it happens again.

He's running late for his first class of the day; the night before had been a late one, nailing down a mid-term essay that is due that morning. It's the first term of Casey's freshman year at a college that's about 50 miles from Herrington. Casey has slept in; apparently, he overlooked the importance of setting the alarm's On switch before he fell exhausted into bed well after 2 am.

He showers quickly so that he can wake himself, then throws on some clothes. Grabbing a banana -- no time for anything else -- he shoves it in his satchel and rushes to his desk to collect the essay sitting on the printer.

It's not there.

"Fuck!" he shouts. "Fuck, fuck, _fuck!_ "

He rifles through the mess of bills and clippings and random, useless shit that's littering his desk, all the while starting the process of trying to remember the last time he'd seen it. He'd print another copy if he could, but at twenty-seven pages, he doesn't have that many sheets in his paper tray or anywhere else for that matter. Okay, not to worry. He'll burn it on his memory stick and print it at the library. Except he can't find his backup. _Fuck!!_ He'll just take his laptop then.

By the time he's packed it up and grabbed his jacket, he knows that the piss he needs to take won't wait the city bus to school. He leaves his bag and computer by the door and races to the bathroom, flying through the doorway and smack into a towel drawer in the vanity that's open about six inches. "Fuck!" he shrieks as pain fires up his shin. He knees it shut with so much force, it bounces closed and slowly slides back open. But he's already unzipping and relieving himself before his eye catches on the opened drawer.

His essay sits neatly on top of the folded hand towels inside.

* 

"You okay, Case?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You're looking tired." Zeke taps the tines of his fork against the placemat, a funky rhythm trying to break out.

"I've been burning the midnight oil. And I don't sleep so well these days."

"You? You're shitting me; you could sleep on a skyhook. Heavy schedule?"

Casey looks out the diner window, silent for a moment. "After what happened at the high school, did you ever have episodes where you couldn't remember things?"

"That happened to me _before_ the invasion as well as after, buddy, you know that. Contrary to popular opinion, my mind is not a steel trap." Zeke's grinning as he brings his coffee cup to his mouth.

"I'm serious, Zeke. Anything that was out of normal?"

They have remained good friends since all that shit went down in high school. Good friends, the kind that come with -- well, the kind that _come_ , although with Casey on campus an hour's drive away, their time together has taken a distinctly long distance tenor. They grab weekend time, Zeke being the one who travels since he has the car, they make out a little -- okay, a _lot_ \-- catch a few clubs and films, Zeke spending the nights over. It's comfortable; they'll figure it out as their lives go on, but for now it's working nicely. Really nicely.

Zeke takes in Casey's troubled expression, the distracted manner he's had since they first sat down and gets back to Casey's question. "Other things, like, thoughts about what could have happened to all of us if things had gone differently, I used to think about that. Not so much anymore. But nothing out of the ordinary with my memory, no. Hey," he says softly, because Casey's still staring out the window. 

Casey looks at him. 

"What's going on?"

"I don't know. There's some weird shit happening around me. At the apartment."

"Spill."

"I forget that I've moved things. But...I don't think I'm forgetting because after it happened the first few times, I made a point of really focusing on where I put things."

"But they still happen," Zeke says.

"But they still happen," Casey concurs.

Zeke doesn't say anything, just waits.

"Sometimes," Casey continues, "things are moved when there's no physical explanation for me having done it. Like, I'll turn around and a second later, I'll turn back, but my shirt is not in my closet anymore, it's lying on my bed. Unless..." He turns and looks back out the window.

"Unless what?"

"I'm Sybil, or something." 

"No, Casey," Zeke says patiently. "You're not Sybil. Your freaky little personality is the only one you have, this I can swear to."

"Maybe then, I'm losing time. I'm blanking out and losing time."

"Have you checked that?"

Casey looks at him, puzzled.

"Have you looked at the clock both before and after this weird shit happens and checked that?"

"No." Casey repositions his mug, the one in which his half-finished coffee is growing cold. "I'll do that," he adds quietly, anticipating how crazy he's going to make himself now that he'll have to watch clocks every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

*

They take in a football game in the afternoon, pick up a case of beer and a pizza, and head to Casey's apartment. After finishing their meal in front of some back-to-back cable comedies Casey's taped, they dial up yet more sports, but it's really only for background noise since they're already pawing each other for dessert. 

Zeke reaches over Casey, who's sprawled beneath him, nicely mussed and flushed, and turns off the trilight.

"Sorry I couldn't come last night," Zeke murmurs when he looks down at Casey. "Sorry I can't be here for you more often, little buddy."

"It's okay," Casey says, fingers toying with the hems of Zeke's pullover and tshirt on their quest for skin. "I know you had to close around midnight."

Zeke descends into the sweetness of Casey's mouth. So far, the sex they've shared hasn't been about intercourse -- Zeke doesn't even know if it'll ever move in that direction, things are still too "guy" between them. But that doesn't matter to Zeke, and he knows it doesn't matter to Casey. The things they've done are better than any sex Zeke's ever had with a woman. 

What he feels for Casey is light years ahead of what he's ever felt with a woman.

"Take it off," Zeke gasps a few minutes later, rucking up Casey's tshirt. He hoists up on one arm and unbuckles his belt singlehandedly, unzips his fly, then unzips Casey's.

Casey peels off his top and flings it, then madly scrambles to remove everything Zeke's wearing from the waist up so that he can add it to the carpet. "Up," he whispers so that Zeke can raise his hips. He catches the belt buckle and whips it through the loose loops of Zeke's jeans, the air snapping as it's freed. They giggle at that, then breathlessly press back together, skin sliding against skin, and their mirth turns to moans and grinding and slick, wet kisses.

Zeke's well on his way to raising a quarter-sized hickey at the base of Casey's neck and a fist-sized hard-on in his own pants when the trilight suddenly snaps back on.

"Fuck!" They've both yelled and jumped at the same time. Zeke begins to laugh, but Casey looks like he's stuck to the ceiling.

"I told you!" he whispers. 

"Casey, easy, easy." Zeke starts to pet his hair. "It's the trilight. It's probably got a loose connection on that setting."

Casey has begun to shake.

"Look," Zeke says, getting up. He reaches under the old lampshade and twists the bulb. The lamp crackles, its light flickering. Zeke rotates the switch through all three settings, each one brighter than the next, except for the last one, which wants to flicker. "It's just the bulb. I thought I'd turned it off, but it was on the last setting."

Casey has sat up, watching Zeke, then the lamp, fighting to regain his breath. "Okay," he nods, "Okay."

Zeke bends down and kisses him. "Let's take it to the bedroom anyway."

Zeke stays the night, the two of them wrapped around each other, and Casey sleeps the rest of the dead. 

*

By Wednesday night, Casey is beginning to relax within his own skin. Since seeing Zeke on the weekend, nothing within the apartment and therefore within his life has been amiss. He's beginning to think that it might have been some weird stress thing.

Zeke makes a point of checking in with Casey at several points throughout each day: every morning, between classes, each evening. He too thinks that with so much time alone now that he's away from family and friends, Casey might be experiencing some kind of delayed post traumatic stress. It's possible. 

This particular evening, they're setting up the weekend. Zeke has decided to drive down late Friday. Fuck it, he thinks, he can sleep in Saturday. 

With Casey. Even better.

"We can chill or catch a band Saturday night," he offers.

"Let's get out," Casey says. "I could use the distraction."

"Then it's a plan."

They hang up and Casey spends the next few hours on assignments before turning in for the night.

He's just entering that twilight before his alpha waves jerk into delta when he feels the bed dip.

He's awakens completely. _Did I imagine that?_ he wonders, heart racing. 

But in the instant after he's thought that, he feels the sheet being slowly pulled from his naked body.

He makes a noise that is this side of a scream but only because it's too scared to come out, and bolts upright, knees already drawn to his chest. 

In the pale light creeping into his room, there is nothing there. 

Nothing, except his sheets being invisibly pulled to the end of his bed.

 _Ohfuckohfuck!_ his brain is screaming. But he's so scared he can't speak. 

He can't move.

Suddenly, something closes over both ankles and yanks him to the end of the bed, and the lightning speed of it throws him back against the mattress. If he were able to concentrate on listening, he would hear nothing except for the pitiful, frightened noises he's making, but he's can't hear over the thunder of his own heartbeat. There's a pressure all of a sudden against his chest that's pinning him where he lays _(Oh god, it's a hand!_ a part of brain realizes) but as his eyes stare downwards, there's nothing there, except, except...

...the skin just under his collar bone is indented in five large depressions, and even if the fingertips making them aren't visible, they are there, they are _real_.

A weight settles on his thighs and Casey grabs at whatever is on his chest because he knows it's there. But when his hands actually collide with the massive arm that belongs to whatever's pinning him -- when he actually feels that there is a fully intact invisible body bearing down on him, he starts swinging. And his fists connect with something. 

Hard. 

Big. 

Bigger than a person.

He wants to pass out. He really just wants to be anywhere but here.

In an instant, the pressure leaves his chest and unbelievably, he watches both of his hands come together, painfully, as if they were tethered, but they're not, he knows that, they're being gripped, and then the pressure on his chest is back, except this time, his hands are captured beneath it. The weight on his thighs is so painful, he thinks both femurs might snap. 

Casey knows that whatever is happening here, whatever is in this bed trapping him, it is something with a life energy that is no figment of his imagination, it is very aware of what it's doing, and it has evil intent. But he doesn't get a chance to think beyond that because in the next instant, he's nearly blinded by the pain that comes when a hand roughly grabs and pulls his genitals.

If he could get air in his lungs, he would be screaming, the pain is so unbearable. But he can barely breathe. 

His vision has gone red when the forces pressing down on him suddenly vanish. In the next instant, as if he were a rag doll, he's flipped onto his stomach. What he knows to be an enormous hand grips the back on his neck and pushes his cheek, now wet with tears he didn't even realize he's been crying, into the mattress. As his thighs are kneed apart, he knows what's coming but strangely that realization is less frightening than the last thought screaming through his mind before he blacks out: _Oh god I don't want to die I don't want to die!_

* 

When Casey gains consciousness, grey has started to creep into his bedroom. He hurts everywhere, but he thinks that if he just pretends he's still asleep, he'll be safer. He closes his eyes and drifts away again.

...

The sound of the land line ringing in the kitchen filters through a little while later. Casey dimly thinks _Zeke..._ but falls back to sleep a moment later.

...

He is hearing his cell phone. _It's ringing,_ he thinks, but it's still better to stay asleep, so that's what he does.

*

By mid-afternoon, with the sun shining brightly into his room, he finally surfaces from the safe harbour he has found. He gingerly pushes himself upright and swings his legs over the side of the bed. There are two large dark bruises atop each of his thighs, which feel like they've been beaten with a club. 

_No dream, then,_ he thinks.

He gets up and hobbles into the bathroom where he runs himself a bath. While the tub fills, he turns on the light and examines himself in the mirror.

Five bruises spanning the exact placement of a large hand mark the top of his chest.

When he moves his head, he feels a sharp, tugging pain high up on his back, just to the right of his nape. He turns so that he can see what's there.

Although the skin isn't broken, it looks like he was bitten by a gorilla.

He opens the cabinet and takes a pair of pain relievers.

As for the other pain -- _down there,_ Casey thinks -- he knows he's hurt pretty badly. It feels like he's had a broom handle shoved up his ass. 

He hopes he'll be okay. He doesn't want to see a doctor. Rapes are reportable, and he knows exactly where he'll end up if he tells anyone he was raped by some unseen Other. He can already imagine the tabloid headlines: _First Aliens, now The Invisible Man!_

He turns off the light and eases himself very slowly into the warm water, wincing and trying to catch his breath as the heat makes the extent of his injuries flare. He pulls the shower curtain so that he can feel more enclosed. Then he turns on the hot water to bring the temperature up.

He stays there for more than an hour, refreshing the hot water every so often, listening while the phones ring yet again. He's nestled in the steam of the tub like a little rabbit in its warren, sinking down below the surface so the water laps just below his bottom lip, sluicing in and out of his ears. His eyes close and he drifts yet once more.

When the bathroom light snaps on not long after, his eyes flash open but he doesn't move. "Go away," he whispers.

The light flicks off.

*

He dresses, packs his satchel and camera bag, stuffs his cell phone into his jacket pocket. Once outside on the sidewalk, he speed dials Zeke, who answers within two rings. 

Casey can barely find his voice. "Zeke," he finally says. "Please come and get me." 

For a moment, there's silence, then: "I'm on my way." 

When Zeke pulls up an hour later, Casey is waiting for him on the steps.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Read Part One first.
> 
> Disclaimer: A work of fiction.

They don't speak on the drive back to Herrington; one look and Zeke knows Casey's a mess. All he says once they're on the highway is, "You're going to be okay, Case."

He takes him home. Casey's moving like a sleepwalker, so Zeke lifts the satchel over Casey's head and removes his jacket. "You want to talk?" he asks. 

Casey shakes his head.

"You want to lie down?"

When Casey nods, he steers him down the hall to his bedroom. There, he sits him on the edge of the bed. "Foot up," he says, pulling off first one sneaker, then the other, then the socks. Casey turns and curls up away from him on the bedspread, and Zeke peels his side of the coverlet back, draping it over Casey, then settles in behind him, drawing him to his chest and running his face against the back of Casey's hair. "It's going to be okay," he says.

* 

Casey jerks awake sometime later, hot and sweaty under all the clothes and bedding, an awful cry of fear erupting up out of his throat.

"Hey," Zeke soothes, rubbing his back and sitting up beside him. 

"I need to use the bathroom."

"Okay." 

Zeke goes into the kitchen and puts a pan of milk on to scald. When it's ready, he pours it in a mug and takes it back into the bedroom. Casey's already back, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Here," Zeke says, handing him the mug. 

It's not too hot, and Casey drains it in one go.

"You know you can talk to me," Zeke says.

"I know."

"Whatever's going on, I'm here for you, you know that."

Casey looks up at him. "I know."

Silence follows. Zeke realizes that it's been dark outside for a few hours now. "You want to just go to sleep?" he asks.

Casey nods.

Zeke goes to the dresser and pulls out a clean tshirt. "Here," he says, handing it to Casey. "You change. I'll get the bed ready."

Casey stands and moves out of the way while Zeke turns back the sheets.

"Here," Zeke says when he sees that Casey hasn't begun to undress. He takes the tshirt from him and pulls Casey's sweater over his head.

"I'll keep my tshirt on," Casey says. He starts to crawl over the bed.

"Casey, you gotta lose the jeans."

Casey freezes, then backs off and unzips his fly, turning away from Zeke. He shucks them down, hangs them on the back of a chair. He walks around to the other side of the bed, where the light is dimmer.

But Zeke's seen the marks on his thighs. "Fuck, Casey," he gasps, "what happened to you?"

Casey follows Zeke's sight line, but he's climbing into the bed, tucking his legs under the sheets to hide them. "I tripped over the coffee table."

Zeke leans over and gently grabs Casey's arm. "What the fuck?" he says, drawing Casey's wrist into the light.

Casey pulls back, turns away. That's when Zeke catches a glimpse of the bite mark half hidden by the collar of his top.

Zeke sits down on the edge of the bed. He's thinking things he doesn't want to think, of Casey -- so slight, so prone to being victimized ( _and wasn't that his fucking calling card all through high school?_ ) -- having been made a victim all over again, only so much worse he fears, and it's all he can do not to want to kill someone right now. He gets up and crawls over the sheets. "I'm going to hold you, okay?" he says quietly because Casey's looking so skittish right now, he might jump right out of his own skin. Zeke tucks in around him. 

"Who hurt you?"

Casey's shaking now. He huffs out a bitter laugh. "You won't fucking believe me."

"Hey, it's me you're talking to. We took down an alien queen and who believed _that_? You have to tell me who did this."

" _What_ did this," Casey whispers, correcting him.

A ghost walks over Zeke's grave.

"There's something alive in my apartment. It's invisible but you can feel it."

"Okay." Casey's talking; that's all Zeke cares about.

"I don't mean you can sense it. I mean you can actually _feel_ the shape of it if you touch it."

Zeke takes this in, willing for a moment to suspend all disbelief if it keeps Casey talking. "Okay."

"At first, I told you how it's just been fucking with my head, moving things. But last night, when I was sleeping..."

Zeke's jaw muscles start to tighten.

"...it came into the bedroom, up onto the bed, and it...attacked me."

"How did it attack you?" Zeke asks quietly. There's a part of Zeke that really doesn't want to know.

"It...held me down, but I tried to fight back." Casey's voice is beginning to disappear. "But it is _big_ , Zeke, monstrous, like a human, only...not. It was as if I weighed nothing. There was nothing I could do."

Carefully, Zeke snugs Casey a little closer because the skin beneath his hands feels like ice. "Tell me everything that happened."

"It grabbed me... _there_ " and Zeke has no trouble imagining where _there_ is, "and then it...and then I passed out. But I think, no, I _know_ it raped me."

Zeke tries to concentrate on anything that isn't at risk of entering the twilight zone his brain has just shifted into. He considers what Casey's telling him is maybe Casey's way of dealing with some guy actually breaking in, startling Casey from a deep sleep, and then shoving his cock into him. "How do you know you were raped?" he grinds out.

"I _know_ , Zeke. There was blood on my sheet later on, when I sat up. And...I'm hurting."

Zeke makes an anguished sound and holds Casey closer.

In the silence that follows, it's the vicious rip of Zeke's breathing that causes Casey to turn his head towards him. "It's okay, Zeke," Casey says. "If parasites can burrow into my face and I survive, I'll get through this too." 

"I need to look at you, Case. I need you to show me where you were hurt."

Zeke releases Casey, and Casey looks at him, eyes huge and fearful.

"You need to show me, Casey."

Slowly, Casey's hands slip to the hem of his tshirt, then pull it up over his head.

"Turn towards the light."

The marks on Casey's chest have only become more set since the afternoon. Zeke winces, then brings his hand up, gingerly settling it over the bruises, his fingers spread. 

"Jesus fuck," he breathes, and anything he's just thought about anything grows brittle and shatters like glass. The points of his fingers are shy a good five inches from the bruises furthest out from each other. 

"Bend forward," he says quietly, fear creeping into his gut. "Let me see your back."

When Casey hangs his head, he touches the indentations spanning the bruised breadth of Casey's shoulder blade to the crest of his shoulder. There is no way this was made by anything human.

Imagining the physical aspects of the actual rape make him feel sick. 

"Casey, we need to record this."

"No, Zeke," Casey moans. 

"You need to let me shoot this. There has to be proof. You know that."

And Casey does. If there is anything they've both learned from what happened at the high school, it's the need for evidence. 

*

Later, after Zeke's taken Casey's camera and documented all the bruises and marks and burned them to a CD, they lay facing each other in bed. "I have to go to Columbus tomorrow," Casey tells Zeke. "There's someone I need to see." 

*

"This particular EMF meter has a triple axis which will give you more stable readings over the X Y Z directionals. It's particularly sensitive to electromagnetic distortion in the 2 to 7 milligauss range. You planning on a little ghost-busting?" The psych lab technician packs the unit into its case and sets it to one side.

"Sort of," Casey says. "And this?"

"This is the ITS," the techie says, moving on to the next gadget on his table. "The thermal scanner uses infrared light to pick up any cold spots in the area, since paranormal activity can be marked by dramatic drops in temperature." He shows Casey and Zeke how it works. "Unless you're planning on staying at the site, you'll need some recording devices for this stuff. These," and he points to an assortment of small consoles and decks, "are activity triggered. Connecting a thermography camera fitted with an infrared lens might give you an image; I can loan you one. The beauty is all of these devices turn on and shut off to save storage. Oh yeah, you'll need lots of tripods."

"What else do you have?" Casey asks.

"These are your workhorses. They should be sufficient in giving you an idea if there's anything in the area."

"What else do you have?" Casey asks again.

"Well," the technician says, rolling his stool to another desk. "Geiger counters, ultrasonic and microwave motion detectors, electrostatic charge meters."

"We'll take three of everything," Zeke says. He turns to Casey, "Bedroom, livingroom, kitchen?"

Casey nods.

The technician's brows go up. "Can't really happen. I'll need all this stuff back by Monday. I've got reserves on most of it for next week."

"Buy more," Zeke says, taking out his wallet.

*

When it comes to courage, balls and determination, no one Zeke's ever known or ever will know can hold a candle to Casey. He watches as Casey stands before the door of the apartment he fled just twenty-four hours before, slipping the key into the lock. 

They enter cautiously, as if afraid they might disturb something.

Everything looks the way it always does: dirty dishes growing crusty in the sink, opened mail on the kitchen table, garbage can lid up from when something was last tossed into it. 

"Let's do the livingroom first," Casey says quietly.

They set about assembling and positioning the equipment, unplugging fixtures to free up outlets, running cables, placing the monitoring equipment for the most complete coverage of the area, which includes most of the hall.

The kitchen is easier; a little goes a long way in the smaller space. 

Zeke's gone ahead to start on the bedroom. He stops in the doorway, not entering, surveying what's there. 

The blankets and top sheet are bunched on the floor at the foot of the bed, pillows still up against the headboard where they never got slept on.

Zeke stares at the sheet. At the small smear of dried blood on it. He closes his eyes and exhales, then walks in and strips it from the mattress. 

He'll get it analyzed.

"Hey," Casey says quietly, and Zeke jumps. "Sorry. Let's get this done."

A half hour later, after they've tested to make sure they can get readings, they lock up and leave.

*

They return Monday morning after spending the weekend in Herrington, and check the cards for data. There is nothing.

Afterwards, Zeke drives Casey to each faculty office, where Casey meets with his professors and explains that a family crisis requires he take time off, and he is given two weeks' worth of assignments so that he can stay on top of his studies.

They drive back to Herrington, and Zeke goes back to the job he doesn't need while Casey tackles his books.

*

They return on Wednesday. 

Nothing.

They return again on Friday. 

Again, nothing.

On Monday, when there is nothing once again, they decide to wait until Friday before coming back.

*

"You're beginning to think I made it up," Casey says Thursday night.

Zeke looks up from his book. "No, Casey. Never."

"Not about being attacked, I know you believe that something happened to me. But maybe you're thinking it was someone from school who came over, like, to study."

Zeke can't believe what he's hearing. "That never once crossed my mind."

"Or that someone broke in."

Zeke looks at him, at how Casey is trying very hard not to look away from the riveting stare he's receiving.

"At the very first, before I saw the marks, that thought had crossed my mind. But not now."

"Okay." 

But Casey thinks Zeke's lying.

*

On Friday afternoon, when they return for the sixth time in two weeks to find nothing, Casey says, "I'm staying."

"There's no fucking way."

Casey will not be dissuaded. "I think I need to be here for it to show."

Zeke is pissed off. "You mean, like, bait?"

Casey looks past him for a moment before his eyes come back to Zeke's. "That's right."

"Then I'm staying with you."

Casey exhales, frustrated. "It doesn't work that way, Zeke. I don't think it will appear if you're here."

"Good. That's the plan, get it?"

"It won't work," Casey fumes, but he knows there's nothing he can say that will convince Zeke otherwise.

"Don't forget I have a key," Zeke adds, just in case Casey has the notion to lock him out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Read previous parts first.
> 
> Disclaimer: A work of fiction.

That night, neither of them sleep very well. When one of them drifts off, the other lies awake, watching, waiting.

But the apartment, and the machines, are silent.

In the morning, they both realize there's a serious shortage of anything to eat that hasn't spoiled.

"We'll both go to the store," Zeke says. Casey doesn't argue.

By midafternoon, the lack of sleep from the night before is catching up with them. They stretch out together on the couch in front of the afternoon football game. Neither of them is awake by the end of the first quarter.

Near the end of the fourth quarter, the needle on the EMF meter in the bedroom swings to 5 milligauss, and the monitoring equipment silently switches on.

* 

"Hey," Zeke murmurs, rubbing his hand across Casey's back. "Wake up." 

Casey moans and feebly tries to raise his head from the warm pillow of Zeke's chest. Zeke's hand comes up and strokes his hair. 

"Case, you need to get off me so that I can go to the bathroom. Come on." He carefully rolls Casey into the crook of the couch and sits up.

"What time is it?" Casey mumbles.

Zeke checks his watch. "Four thirty. You getting hungry?"

"Yeah."

Zeke stands and stretches. "I'll make us some BLTs." He walks down the hall to the bathroom.

When he returns, Casey's hovering over one of the consoles. "You find it colder in here?" 

It hasn't really struck Zeke as being any different temperature-wise than when they'd fallen asleep, maybe even a little warmer now that he's had a chance to rest under a Casey-blanket. Anyway, he always runs a little cool when he's tired. "What's it saying?" he asks, nodding toward the console.

"Nothing," Casey says. "Not a peep. I need a blanket." 

While he goes to retrieve one from the bedroom, Zeke takes the bacon from the fridge and the frying pan from its home in the oven and sets about making something to eat.

*

Casey strips back the bedspread right to the foot of the bed, then reaches up and digs under the pillows for the satin hem of the thermal blanket that's covering the sheet. It's the only one he's got in the apartment; he'll have to get more now that winter's coming on. He turns, bunching it in his arms.

He notices that the red eye of the camera is on. His heart trips for a second before he realizes that he has been the trigger. He lets out a shaky laugh.

Quietly, the bedroom door closes, the handle turning, shutting him in.

_Ohfuckno!_

His heart feels like it's just exploded within his rib cage; try as he might, his feet seem riveted to the floor. He really wants to call out to Zeke, but nothing can get past the terror uncurling in his throat, belly, bowels. The shake starts in his knees and slowly works itself upwards, and he sinks to the edge of the bed.

A drawer opens and slams shut in the dresser beside the closet door, and Casey jumps with a small, pathetic shriek. 

He's started to suck in air, trying hard to fill his lungs, to fight off the lightness in his head. 

The blind on the window suddenly unfurls as if drawn with great force, shuttering the room in shadows.

Then there is silence.

The silence stretches until Casey begins to feel a pressure, like that of a hand, on his thigh.

_Oh god, not again, not again._ He's begun to make a small keening noise. 

The pressure stills, then lifts and his hair is brushed lightly from his forehead. Casey flinches.

He closes his eyes. "You hurt me," he whispers. "The last time...you hurt me so badly."

He feels himself being pushed, not violently, but steadily to lie back on the bed, the blanket that's still bunched tightly in his hands being lifted and dropped to the floor. "Why?" he whispers. "I never did anything to hurt you." He finds himself staring at the dusty overhead fixture on the ceiling.

What feels like a hand -- _no, an enormous palm,_ he thinks-- closes over the denim covering his groin, and Casey whimpers, "Don't hurt me," tears starting in his eyes.

The hand doesn't. It presses and cups and moves Casey's thighs apart.

The bedroom door pushes open. "Casey?"

_Don't come in here, Zeke!_ Casey wants to yell, but in an instant he knows he's been abandoned and he watches with horror as Zeke sails backward across the hall into the jamb of the bathroom door and crumples to the floor.

"Don't hurt him!!" Casey screams desperately and tries to sit up, but an instant later, he's slammed back into the mattress.

He thinks Zeke is unconscious.

"Don't hurt him," Casey whimpers. "He is only trying to protect me. You can do anything you want to me, just don't hurt him."

The pressure on Casey's chest relaxes and his sweater and tshirt bulge upwards, and Casey can feel what must be fingers creeping under the layers of fabric across his stomach. His skin shrinks and quivers under the touch.

Something wet smears through the tears leaking across his temple.

An injured moan comes from the hallway.

"Please, don't hurt him," Casey whispers, pleading. "Don't hurt us. We're not here to harm you. Please." 

For what seems like an eternity but what is probably only minutes, Casey feels his chest and stomach caressed, his shoulders, his neck, fingers tripping over his nipples, searching under the layers of fabric, then what must be another hand stroking his scalp, his cheeks, his lips as if he is braille. He lies absolutely still, the only sound a quiet chant of _pleasepleaseplease._

And then it stops and very soon after, Casey feels the bed dip near the headboard.

He lies there for what must be a full minute. Then he asks, "Can I get up and check my friend?"

Something slips under his head and lifts it, then let's it drop.

Casey sits up and waits. When nothing happens, he moves quickly to the hallway and kneels beside Zeke. "Can you hear me?" he whispers. 

Zeke is lying on his side, face angled to the floor and he's blinking, trying to shake the fog that doesn't want to lift. 

"We've got to leave, Zeke," Casey whispers urgently. "Can you hear me? Can you get up?"

The apartment is beginning to smell of burnt bacon.

Zeke tries to push himself up, but it's not working. Casey reaches under him and heaves him upright, leaning him against the wall. "We've got to go," he says. "We've got to go _now_."

Zeke makes a motion that he wants to stand, and Casey helps him to his feet. 

"Can you walk?" Casey's angled himself right under Zeke's shoulder, a hand pressing Zeke back against the wall so that he won't pitch forward.

"Yeah." 

"Can you walk on your own?"

"Think so, yeah. You okay?"

"Go to the door. I'll be there in a sec."

Casey waits to make sure that Zeke is steady as he makes his way down the hall, then turns and steps back into the bedroom.

"There's just something I need before I go," he says to the empty space.

He walks to the thermal camera and pops the memory card. Slipping it into his pocket, he turns, hesitating at the doorway. "Thank you," he says over his shoulder, then leaves.

* 

It's a given that Casey will drive the car for the trip back to Herrington. It's all he can do not to floor it.

Zeke's folded on the passenger seat, head against the window and eyes closed. They travel in silence as the sun inches towards the horizon, long shadows thrown by the riot of autumn trees shedding their leaves across the highway. Casey is worried about concussion, so every few minutes he asks, "Can you hear me, Zeke?" and Zeke grunts _yeah_ before nodding off again.

They are just entering the town's limits when Casey asks yet once more.

"I'm right beside you, Casey," Zeke mumbles through his discomfort, "and yes, I can fucking hear you." 

Casey exhales, relieved. He doesn't feel quite so alone now.

*

They are sitting at the computer, the memory card in its drive, and they've been viewing the video for about fifteen minutes. 

Those minutes haven't really given them any useful information, at least not anything they are able to decipher as being out of the ordinary. The mere fact that it has recorded, however, suggests they should be looking for something, but it's difficult to know what they're seeing, partly because the ambient electrical charge in the room has rendered everything constant, and partly because its low level means the image is basically dark. They can't detect any real movement, only what might be a marginally lighter area towards one side of the picture that morphs a little in size but could be the result of interference from the other pieces of recording equipment. It's only when Casey enters the room that they have a reference point and it is dramatic; the temperature he emits manifests in a hot pink that fades to violet and blue at the edges of his form. 

They watch as he strips the bed, but when he reaches up under the pillows, the picture goes dark. A second later, Casey comes into view again; he has turned towards the camera, the heat from his eyes and mouth a hot yellow. In the centre of his body is a dark area. "That's the blanket I was holding," Casey murmurs. "Back it up. I want to see when it went black for a second."

Zeke takes it back and lets it play. "Do it again," Casey says after his image reappears.

"What are you seeing?"

Casey points to the far left of the screen. "This slightly lighter area, the one that's been there all along. That's what blocks me out. Watch it." They play it again.

"Jesus," Zeke breathes. 

"Keep going."

The video shows that Casey has stopped at the side of the bed. The image goes black again, only for an instant, but when Casey reappears, he's now sitting on the bed.

"The drawer slams," Casey whispers and his thermal image jerks. "The blind is pulled," he continues, "and I'm going to disappear from view. Watch for it."

Sure enough, something passes in front of the camera and Casey's thermal image is blocked out, everything except his shins and feet. Then his head appears on the other edge of the darkness as he is laid against the mattress.

"Then you opened the door." Casey's image reappears and he's sitting up quickly. "Are you beginning to make out what to look for?"

"Yeah," Zeke whispers.

They both jump as Casey's image slams back onto the mattress. "Stop, stop!" Casey shouts. "Replay."

"I know, I know," Zeke says hurriedly. He takes it back and at the instant that Casey falls back, he freezes the picture.

"Do you see it?" Casey says excitedly. "Do you fucking see its goddamned hand?"

Against the radiation emitted by Casey's body, a huge shadow with five distinct fingers spans his chest.

"Jesus, Jesus," Zeke gasps, "it's enormous."

"Keep going."

For the next four minutes, Casey's image is only visible from the thighs down as the dark shape blots out his thermal image. "It's solid, Zeke," Casey says quietly. "The radiaton from my body doesn't pass through it. It has mass."

"But no real energy," Zeke observes, then clarifies. "At least, no real heat." 

Watching Casey fully reappear is like watching the end of an eclipse. By now, they are able to distinguish the slightly lighter borders of the entity from the darker background of the room. It moves around the bed and up against the headboard. For a minute, the video-Casey doesn't move; when he does, it is just his head.

"Oh wow!" Casey erupts. "It used its foot to let me know I could move!"

Zeke can't help think of a cat playing with its prey.

From that point until the moment the film is stopped, the object on the bed never moves.

*

"How's your back?" Casey asks later when they're in bed.

"Sore. Really sore. Case, you can never go back there."

"I know."

"Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give the lab guy the key to the place and let him know he can have all his equipment back, free, as long as the university goes and picks it up and shares the data with us. I'll hire movers to empty out the apartment, your clothes, computer, everything."

"Okay. But I'll need a new place right away."

"We'll make it happen." Zeke's quiet. "What you went through was horrible, Case. It scares me to think of how much worse it could have been." 

Casey curls closer to him. "What I don't get is the change," he says. "It was so brutal that first time, but it...changed towards me, you know? When it was touching me today, it was almost gentle. It was like it was trying to map what a body felt like, what skin and hair and features felt like. So different from the first time."

Zeke pulls him close. "Casey, my Casey. You can't cut that thing any slack, ever. It's done, it's over." 

*

By Thanksgiving, Casey has been back in classes for a month. His new apartment is closer to the campus, in a modern building that Zeke has helped finance, despite Casey's objections. Casey knows that Zeke is hedging his bets by picking a place that he figures no one has died in. 

He's got a break in his schedule the last Tuesday in November, a teacher-cancelled class, one that has allowed him to sleep in before his first lecture at 11am. He walks into the kitchen and sits down, sleep taking its sweet time to leave, and he thinks maybe he should get his breakfast going.

The coffee maker clicks on.

Casey looks up at the solid red light by the On switch.

The door of the dish cupboard slowly swings open. 

Casey sits up a little straighter and folds his hands together on the table. He inhales to steady himself.

"He'll never share me, you know that," he says to the room. "You're never to let him know you're back."

The cupboard door inches shut.

 

The End


End file.
